SCOTTISH female boxer Natalie McKay hopes Nicola Adam's Olympic boxing gold medal will encourage critics to see that a boxing ring is a fit place for a woman to be.

WHEN she is not fighting in the ring, Natalie McKay swaps her boxing boots for heels and her shorts for a skirt.

Because being a pugilist doesn’t mean she can’t be pretty.

Natalie made boxing history when she became the first Scottish female to compete in the World Amateur
Championships at the age of 15.

This week, she cheered herself hoarse as Nicola Adams became the first woman to win an Olympic boxing gold medal.

Nicola Adams with boxing gold medal

The fight once again fuelled the debate over whether the boxing ring is a fit place for a woman.

Natalie
hopes the pendulum will now swing towards support for fighters like her
– who believe that boxing shouldn’t be an exclusively male domain.

She said: ”I hope people see that it is no less a sport and there is no reason women can’t box.

“It is women fighting women but the way people talk, you would think it was women fighting men. It
takes the same dedication and hard work, so they deserve the same respect.

“It’s no more dangerous for women. We wear protection the same as guys do.”

Natalie,
from Port Glasgow in Renfrewshire, attended the GB training camp but was told she was too young for this year’s Olympics.

At
19, she is a decade younger than champion Nicola – but after watching her performance, Natalie now has her sights set on 2016.

She said: “I trained with Nicola in the camp and I thought she was a tremendous boxer.

“When I watched her at the Olympics, I was so excited. It was insane.

“It is just fantastic that she won and it has done so much for women in the sport. She is an inspiration.

“When
people see an actual fight, a lot of them change their attitude. I have
noticed that people who might not have agreed with female boxing have changed their minds after they see me fight.

“It is something you have to see before you judge and I think the Olympics have been a great opportunity for that.”

Nicola Adams wins Olympic gold

Natalie decided to box when she was 13 after watching her brother Sean in the ring.

She
said: “I really wanted to do it and when a couple of girls came on I made up my mind I would train and I would beat them – and I did.”

Natalie admits she has had a couple of black eyes and bruised ribs – and her nose bleeds in most fights.

She
said: “I don’t have a good nose for hitting. It bleeds every time someone punches it.” But she added: “I have never had a more serious injury than that. I have never had anything that caused me to go to a hospital.”

However, while most people admire Natalie and are supportive, there are a minority of men in the sport who have been hostile.

She
said: “Some have said that the boxing ring is no place for a woman. They don’t actually speak to me. I shrug it off but it isn’t nice.”

Thankfully,
Kenny Crighton – who coached Natalie for six years – treated her like any other boxer. She said: “He never made me feel any different from the
boys and that was great.”

These days, people who meet Natalie are staggered that a girl who is so feminine is a fighter.

She said: “They are shocked because I am so girly. They say I don’t look like a boxer. That’s a common reaction.

“I
love fashion. My wardrobe is full of heels. I am extremely girly but at
the same time when I do sport, I am so competitive – I am more like a boy.”

It could be argued that Natalie’s boxing is less harmful than the booze-binge culture that damages many more young women.

She doesn’t drink or smoke and her diet is packed with fruit and vegetables.

For the last year she has been coaching and half her pupils are girls.

Natalie
said: “Nicola showed it’s not just guys who can do it. I hope a lot more girls try it and it becomes less controversial.”

JOAN BURNIE BACKS FEMALE BOXING

THERE
are those who believe boxing should be banned for everyone. Nor can anyone deny that the alleged noble art can be nasty, brutal and bloody, especially the pro game.

There is also, according to the BMA, conclusive evidence that it causes irreversible brain damage.

Certainly
people get hurt. It isn’t tomato sauce which flows from cut lips and noses. The bruises are real and it’s seldom pretty.

So
far, so bad, although personally I have always thought there were worse
places for kids to work out their aggression and energy than a boxing ring, at least at amateur level where damage is limited.

Others
vehemently disagree. They just want it gone. To them, people battering each other’s lights out has about as much a place in civilised society as bear baiting.

But that is an argument for another day and while boxing is accepted as a sport, both sexes must be allowed to do it. End of.

It’s an open and shut case of equality. Sauce for the goose and all that.

Banning the so-called gentler sex from boxing is on a par with saying they shouldn’t play football or men can’t play hockey.

There
is something sweetly old fashioned – or to put it another way, chauvinistic – about gents who are vehemently opposed to women preferring boxing gloves to Marigolds.

They’ll
tell you it’s just not right, that women should be sugar and spice and all things nice, not slugging it out toe-to-toe, far less boob-to-boob. In short, it’s not feminine.

Like to see one of them tell Nicola Adams that.

And
if you carry the objection to women participating in a contact sport such as boxing to its logical conclusion, you end up like Saudi Arabia where women can’t even watch football matches lest they get too excited.

So if you don’t like it, boys, do something else – like painting your nails.

HUGH KEEVINS ARGUES AGAINST FEMALE BOXING

For the
life of me, I can’t see what two women hitting seven bells out of each other in a boxing ring has to do with the Olympic ideal.

I know it’s notfashionable
to knock anything to do with Lord Coe’s jamboree in London, but that doesn’t mean you can’t have a personal preference.

And
my favoured option is to see Ricky Burns defend his world lightweight title against Kevin Mitchell at the SECC next month without worrying about his missus being on the undercard against the girl next door.

I
might be out of step with modern-day thinking and belong to the old codgers’ generation who still hold doors open for women, but there are issues here that can’t be overlooked. Women simply weren’t made to fight
each other, which means there are medical considerations that can’t be dismissed as an irrelevance.

There’s also the moral question surrounding the highly questionable spectacle of two females behaving in a distinctly unladylike manner.

The bottom line is it’s totally undignified and an affront to decency.

It’s equal rights gone wrong and a sign that the Olympic movement’s gone to the dogs at the same time.

What
next – will Simon Cowell be hired to referee a square go between Dannii
Minogue and Cheryl Cole in order to improve reality show ratings? Million Dollar Baby was for the movies but when women start hitting each
other for medals at the Olympics, then life has started to imitate art in a bad way.

I’m scared enough of my wife as it is.

And
she certainly wouldn’t have to put in the gumshield and tie on the gloves to make that state of affairs any more intimidating.

If
there were two women fighting each other in my back garden, I wouldn’t open the curtains to watch them – and where I come from, there’s every chance that kind of contest could be staged.